


Carry On

by Salmon_I



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Claire-centric, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon_I/pseuds/Salmon_I
Summary: The war ends, the world is saved, but her father never comes home. If asked, Claire would tell you that being the child of a hero sucks ass.Claire's journey to adulthood and the path of a Hunter. Canon compliant through 12x16





	Carry On

Claire is a child when her father disappears. She doesn't know it then, but there is a war between Heaven and Hell going on. There's 66 Seals counting down to the end of the world, and her father has agreed to play a part in it.

She learns of it when her mother and her are pulled into the war briefly, and in her desire to save her family she agrees to be a vessel to the same Angel who her father also said yes to. Who he says yes to again because he wants to protect her.

The war ends, the world is saved, but her father never comes home. If asked, Claire would tell you that being the child of a hero sucks ass.

 

Claire is still a child when her mother disappears. Not because of any war, supernatural or otherwise, but because she is human and sad and maybe desperate. She wants her husband back, and since Claire wants her father back she tries to understand her choices.

It is easier while her grandmother is still alive. Early on she had hope that her mother would succeed. That she would return with her father and everything would be alright. The hope dies slowly. She accepts her father will never be found before her mother does. She waits for her to accept it and return, but she never does. She grows angry and bitter in the years that follow.

 

Claire is a teenager when Castiel returns, without her father. The thing is, she knows he is good. She had been his vessel, however briefly. No matter how good Castiel is, though, he can't bring her family back. He can't go back in time, choose another devout man to be his vessel and reverse the train wreck that has become her life.

It's easy to be angry with him because he is there to be angry at. A part of her suspects if her father was in front of her, she would be angry with him too.

Knowing her mother was captured eases something inside of her. She didn't choose not to return to her, she was prevented from it. Then her mother takes a sword for her, and even though she uses the same sword to kill her killer, it doesn't change anything. Not the pain or the loss. Not the emptiness or anger.

The world is a cruel place, and for the first time Claire wants to do something about it instead of accepting it. Even though Dean warns her about the hunting life, he also gives her the lore book. Because he knows. He knows about anger, and emptiness, and the need to release one and fill the other.

 

Claire is still a teenager and she wants what Alex and Jody have, but she doesn't see how it is possible to have it. Her real family has been gone so long, she doesn't remember how it works. She doesn't know how to reach for it; how to accept it.

Then Alex is offering her life for hers, and realization is a punch in the gut. She already has it.

If Alex wanted to hunt, then things may have gone differently after. Alex doesn't want to, though, and Claire wants her to be happy. She is grateful for Jody, but she also knows that she would rather protect her than hunt with her. A mother always puts her children first, and she loves her for it even when it frustrates her.

So she goes solo, and if Sam and Dean hadn't come, it may have ended different. Bloody, or worse. Because she meant what she said, she couldn't have controlled it, and she knew Dean understood her when she said it. They're too much alike for him not to.

Even that doesn't change her mind. Doesn't inspire the need to return to college and settle down into ignorant normalcy. Claire needs to hunt. Because she is still angry and empty and it gives her life purpose. Gives her loss purpose if she does something with the knowledge it gained her.

 

Claire is an adult the night Jody is killed, but the news makes her feel like a child all over again. At the funeral she stands by Alex as a priest recites prayers to a god she hasn't believed in for years. Because Jody is the town sheriff, and they can't have a hunter's funeral for her.

They do have a hunter's wake. It helps even though it hurts. Dean offers for Sam and he to track the killer but it is her right, and they both know it. Alex comes to her and tells her she wants to hunt with her, but Claire puts her on a train back to her internship. Alex wanted normal, and she won't let this ruin that. When Cas is waiting for her at the car, she smiles for the first time since she heard the news.

When Alex shows up in the town they track it to a couple weeks later she is angry. When she realizes she never returned to the internship, and has faked every text and phonecall that suggested otherwise, she is furious.

Cas attempts to keep the peace and she is pretty sure he abuses his speed dial to the Winchesters. The thing is, she is also pretty sure that Sam is siding with Alex, and Dean with her so it probably isn't much help.

Jody's killer escapes, and she wants to blame Alex. Because she is there, and because she shouldn't be and because the anger inside her never goes away, not really. But maybe she isn't just an adult, maybe she has actually grown up - and there is a difference, always has been - because instead she tells her to get in the car.

Cas lets them go alone, but she has his number on speed dial, and his latest birthday gift wound around her wrist, and she knows it is because it's the right thing to do and not because he doesn't want to be around her. She hugs him goodbye.

The night they finally succeed, they are bloody and bruised and even though she knows it won't ease the pain or fill the emptiness, her hand doesn't waver. "This is for our mother."

It should feel like an end. Instead, it feels like a beginning.

_Fini_

**Author's Note:**

> OMChuck! I just killed Jody. I'm sorry, everyone. I really adore Jody. But the chance to explore the parallels between Alex and Claire and Sam and Dean was too much to resist. I just wasn't quite ready to write a "Sam and Dean die, and the next generation of hunters takes on their killers" fic. So I picked on Jody instead. I also wrote this before 12x23, and since we don't know what happens in season 13 I didn't change a certain part.
> 
> I purposefully leave out what killed Jody and how they kill it because I really wasn't sure what to make it. I had toyed with the idea of Jefferson Starships but using that name does not flow well with angst. Lol So I left it unnamed.


End file.
